Have you gone to church or synagogue this weekend? According to national averages, chances are you have not. Remember when you felt guilty about not going, or someone in your family shamed you for not attending? While parents have the duty to think for their children most of the time until they mature in their use of reason, as adults we need to make our own decisions. One of these is how, not if, we will develop our spiritual lives.
Every human has the capacity to be spiritual. Every human also has the capacity to form bonds of community that constitute a religious sensibility. As spiritual beings in a physical body, we are able to connect deeply with what is totally beyond us. Those moments when we observe ourselves, others, and nature with that “sixth sense” of empathy, intuition, or just “knowing,” cannot be explained by empirical science. They are a combination of complex sensory activity within our nervous systems and something else: the transcendent power of the universe, however we define it with our limited capabilities.
Religion is supposed to support spirituality. Through the connections we make with others who have common spiritual interests, experiences and beliefs, we are supposed to deepen our spiritual connections and so grow in wholeness as beings ordered toward love. And so we change the world for the better.
Coaching can help explore the whole area of spirituality, provided the coach has some training also in spiritual counsel. The spiritual aspects of life, like the physical, cannot be ignored without harming the individual. What have you been doing to foster and deepen your spiritual awareness?
Contact the Man’s Coach at michael@parisecoaching.com . The Man’s Coach offers a free coaching session to whoever contacts him.